Category Archives: Missional

Death

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Death has (and should) defined following Jesus from the very beginning. Christianity is called to be a mysterious comination of life and death.

It is through the death (and the fact that he rose back to life) of Jesus that people find life. Before his death within the context of the passover meal (which is a meal centered around the Isralite lives that were spared amidst the death of the Egyptians) that Jesus told his followers to remember him by continuing the tradition of the passover within a new context. This new context was that the bread now represented his body (which died on our behalf) and his blood (that was spilled on our behalf) both of which can only be understood surrounded by the context of his life that was constantly being poured out for those around him. Jesus offered people living water, called himself the bread of life, and used metaphors associated with living things (mustard plants, growing seeds, water, bread, sheep, trees, etc.) to communicate the nature of his mission and his church. At the same time speaking about the kingdom he said that “unless a seed falls and dies…”, and “you must deny yourself, take up your cross (death), and follow me…”, and again “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it…”

Death and life.

We see this in the early church where people were willing to live radically for Jesus. When disease would break out in a city in those days everyone but the sick would leave town. It was a quarentine of sorts. But the Christians stayed. The Christians were the ones known for staying behind and caring for the sick even if it meant risking death for themselves. We can read story after story where Christ followers were willing to die because of the phrase “Jesus is Lord” that they refused to renounce. They found life in those words. They found so much life that it was worth death.

What in the world have we made being a follower of Christ turn into? We argue about carpet colors, we spend billions of dollers each year in new church buidling construction (it was 2 billion a year in the 80’s), we spend our time trying to keep all the Christians happy (in other words we’re spending time prioritizing Christian needs over those outside our doors), we spend time arguing about worship instead of engaging in it, we fight over being more right instead of “fighting” over being more sacrificial…you can fill in your own experiences here.

If I know one thing for certain its that Jesus did not die so that we could be comfortable. Comfortability is probably an enemy to living in and living out Christ’s transformational kingdom. Comfortability is in opposition to dying to self.

If we are to truly experience the mystery of the church, that is, of experiencing both life and death, we’ve got to start with the question “is Jesus Lord of my life”. If Jesus is lord of your life that implies that…

  • You’re relinquishing control
  • You’re giving him access to every aspect of your life
  • You’re willing to join him in death
  • You’re able to join him in resurrection
  • You’re invited to live resurrection daily
  • Carpet colors do not matter
  • Fill in your own blank here

Reflections on a Few Years of Church Planting Cont.

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James posted this response to Tuesday’s blog
Do you want to say more about the transition from just doing a really good job of doing church to living missionally with the unchurched? That is a journey I need to take.
Here’s the best I can do for a response right now, though I know that there are many of you out there who could answer with much more wisdom, experience, and practical insight.
The transition from being good church people to being whatever you want to call us now took a strong willingness to slow down our life, take a step out from normalacy, and a willingness to change our posture.
Slowing down is important because it’s near impossible to see God within our family if we’re too busy let alone see him at work in my neighbor. Stepping out of whatever I consider to be normal for myself is important because we won’t meet people who need Jesus by hanging out in our same circles (this is more true for paid ministerial staff and life long churchy folks). And our posture is crucially important because it, more than most else, shows people how we’re different. My experience at my local coffee shop is a perfect one. I was there for a month before I ever got to know a soul (aside from one barista who was a Christian). I would go in, order my coffee, and go to the secluded part of the shop where I was nearly in a room by myself, and then I’d plant my face in a book or computer for three hours. Eventually I realized that I needed to step out. So I started sitting in the front area where I was constantly getting distracted by people coming in and out. Then I started changing my posture. I faced the door, I looked up showed that I was paying attention when I was eavsdropping into someone elses conversation. Then, finally, I started interupting and making myself a part of the dialogue. After doing those few things I found it near impossible to get any “work” done because I knew too many people, there was too much going on, and I’d spend a whole morning talking to strangers. It also challenged me as someone who loves to accomplish things. I had to decide to give up some things, to not acomplish some things, and to not be nearly as productive.
So here’s a whole pile of unsorted thoughts…The reality is that the only people that work according to our scheduled work times are the “good churchy folks”. Everyone else doesn’t give a damn about the fact that you’re supposed to go to church on Sundays, be a part of a small group on Wednesdays, etc. It took a willingness to sacrifice more of our time than we desired because opportunities to spend time with people who need Jesus did not happen planned out or at easy moments. Inevitably it was when we were rushing and trying to get our house clean for our home community that a valuable conversation happened with a neighbor. And it’s not that four years ago I wouldn’t have been willing to have a conversation with my neighbor (shoot I would have been ecstatic to be able to talk to my neighbors!) rather four years ago I wouldn’t have stopped cleaning the house to go get the mail when I saw my neighbor chilin’ outside. Four years ago I wouldn’t have stepped out in order to meet that person.
I don’t know if any of this has helped or clarified. If I had to narrow it down to the single greatest challenge to all of this as a minister it would be the idea of redefining success. Programs look better, they fill newsletters better, they often create more buzz and excitement but for the most part they are not the type of success that we’re called to achieve (that last line doesn’t sit with me well ’cause it feels like it’s describing peoples spiritual journey as a measure of my success…which it is not! I hope y’all understand what I’m getting at with that line.) You end up feeling like you might be wasting your time a lot ’cause your not being productive. But my guess is that in the beginning it will feel like more of a choice that by the end will become second nature.
Anyone else have wisdom greater than my own that they’d like to share?
What an exciting gift it is to be able to journey with Jesus in all of this.
peace.

Gun Control

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Just read this story about a church that’s hosting an “Open Carry Celebration” where they’re inviting everyone to bring their handguns, sing songs about America, and even buy a $1 raffle ticket to win a free hand gun! They say it’s a “celebration for all who support our 1st and 2nd amendment rights” and the advertisement invites you to “come celebrate our rights as Americans”.

Let’s not even discuss the issue of gun control and the right to bear arms. I mean it’s a very important topic but one that seems more suited to someone who has done more research (seems like a good English 102 paper). I personally just prefer for people not to shoot each other. Anyway, the big question is whether or not this is appropriate in the church.

I’ve got two differing thoughts:

  1. My first response was a toned down outrage or frustration that a church would do something so ridiculous. That a church would actually be a part of inviting everyone to bring their guns, to celebrate America, and all that jazz. Seems like churches have a hard enough task funneling peoples worship toward Jesus and building excitement concerning the Holy Spirits work in peoples lives. Do we really want to spend our time drumming up enthusiasm for carrying guns and worshiping our nation? Is that the churches role? Isn’t our role to be the body of Christ? Didn’t the early church have a simple motto “Jesus is Lord” which was in stark opposition to the phrase of the day “Caesar is Lord”. In other words when the Roman empire was trying to get it’s citizens to sing the praises of Caesar the early church turned their phrases upside down and reinterpreted them to give glory to the true savior of the people. While no president has claimed to be God, it is interesting that in honor of our country we sing songs, we have parades, we light fireworks, we even pledge our allegiance (synonyms include faithfulness, devotion, fidelity, honor, obedience, piety, and duty) to our nation. If that doesn’t sound like the actions of worship I don’t know what does. It’s just interesting isn’t it? When hymn books include “God bless America” and “America the beautiful” next to songs like “Holy Holy Holy” and “How Great Thou Art” I start to have some serious questions about where our loyalty lies. So my first thoughts included all this. A bit of disgust. A bit of judgement (though I prefer to call it righteous indignation). A bit of…well you get the point.
  2. My second thoughts were an attempt to see all of this from the point of view of a good ol’ boy from Kentucky (where this church is located). I mean good ol’ boys are the people they’re trying to bring to Jesus. So if a ridiculous gun control day helps to bring people to Jesus then by all means do it. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t suggest doing something immoral and wrong in order to introduce people to Jesus, but I’m confident that these people have absolutely no spiritual or moral conflict with gun possession! So within that context I’d just place this event in the same box that I put other goofy attempts at creating “evangelistic events” like churches often do. At least they’re trying I guess right? I mean I’d prefer a different route, but at least they’re doing something! There’s a really awesome church here in Vancouver that advertised their Sunday services with tigers and monkeys on stage. Kind of goofy I thought. But in the end they brought more people to new faith on the lion, tiger, and bear week than any other in their history.

I don’t know where you sit on the issue. I’d love to hear your opinion. You’ve heard some of my gut immediate thoughts, right or wrong as they might be. At the very least let’s all agree that this is a really weird story.

peace.

Reflections on a few years of church planting

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It’s amazing to see how the leadership at Renovatus has changed. I’m not talking about the actual turnover in leadership but rather I’m reflecting on our capability to understand mission and to live missionally. I’m talking about our understanding of community and our ability to cultivate it in small group type settings. I’m talking about our understanding of the difference between programs and discipleship.

Before Renovatus launched we were excited and passionate about reaching people who did not know Jesus. But the reality is that the furthest we could understand this “mission” was to create an atmosphere on Sunday mornings that we could invite people to. We didn’t really know how to be with people who needed Jesus. We didn’t know how to share our faith in real and non-creepy ways. So because of this understanding our Sunday gatherings used to be much higher quality than they are now (in my humble opinion). And they should have been! I mean we were spending all of our hours working on the Sunday gathering so it had better have been good! It’s all we knew to do. Few of us had been a part of a healthy small group especially one that included people who were not followers of Christ. I remember wondering how anyone who wasn’t a Christ-Follower would ever come to a small group in my living room. So missional communities were not a part of our practice. Our energy was spent doing things like renting out a gym to have dance nights, craft nights, and other fun things. These fun nights were filled with lots of Christians from a few different churches around town. We didn’t really know how to invite people from outside our circle. These “fun nights” were a lot of energy and a bit of money for no real purpose.

Everything was exciting…and very foreign. Much of it was forced…but we couldn’t do anything else…we didn’t know how to do anything else!

I’m not even going to spend time in this blog to tell you all the ridiculous stuff we did, the terrible stories we lived out, the awkward things that were said from a microphone. But needless to say we were stepping out into the unknown and I think that when you do that you either step immediately into a beautiful field of flowers or you stumble around bumping into trees, stumbling over rocks, and eventually because of the Spirits quiet whisper you find your way to to the place of beauty. I won’t say that we’ve got it figured out now ’cause anyone who spends any time with us can quickly ascertain that indeed we do not! But I wills say that the value of being a part of a church plant, of forging a path that no one in your circle is an invaluable teacher.

My hope and prayer is that the lessons we learn as we get deeper into planting another church bring us closer to our Savior and living more near those who need him.

Contextualizing Suckers

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I was blessed to have a great conversation with a person last week that made me tear up. We weren’t talking about anything necessarily emotional, it wasn’t a bear all session but it was one of those conversations where everything that a baby church dreams about was happening. This person was struggling because there were too many suckers around her. Other people use the word “follower” but I prefer the term “sucker”, you know, they’re the people who just want to suck off you. They come to you to be fed emotionally, spiritually, and physically. They want you to make them dinner, listen to their problems, and help them work out a solution. It’s not bad, these aren’t bad people, they’re normal people. They’re most people. Most people at churches are suckers because most people at churches are taught to suck. In many ways you can’t grow unless you’ve got someone you can suck off of.

Anyway, this girl was stressed ’cause she’s tired of feeding suckers. As a fairly new Christ-Follower it was great to hear her lament about the good ol’ days when they had other friends who shouldered more of the load, who they could suck off of. It was great because I was able to contextualize for her and say “Yeah, those people who you used to chronically suck off of, they were called leaders. And, well…welcome to being a leader!” I was able to tell her that she’s experiencing the pain of transitioning from being a follower/sucker to being a leader. And it’s hard. And she doesn’t want to do it. The greatest part is that she’s not leading because she went to some new leaders course at our church and she’s not leading because the staff wisely assessed her as an upcoming leader. She’s leading because she lives her life in such a way that she listens to the Spirit, cares for those who need Jesus around her, and invites those people to journey with her. So in turn people are following her. I think it’s John Maxwell that says that leadership is simply influence.

Part of her struggle is that all the churched people want to add more things to her schedule, they want to add “evangelism nights” (whatever that is), they want to add special trainings on how to do evangelism, and other “good” churchy things. So she screams out that she doesn’t have time for this stuff, that she’s too stressed and busy as it is! And where I teared up a bit was when I was able to say that she is living the life of a missional (and I defined this to her as someone who sees their every day life as an opportunity for God to use them to transform the world around them in simple, spectacular, and mundane) follower of Jesus and that this is our prayer for every follower of Christ.

By the end of the conversation a weight seemed to be lifted off her shoulders and I think she walked away believing the reality that the Spirit was doing something in her, that the draining she was feeling from people sucking off her was actually God pouring her out to those in need, that her role is vitally important in the kingdom work of Vancouver, and that she needs to hang out with a couple other leaders to commiserate and be sharpened.

It was a blessed conversation and I look forward to having many more.